Crafting Creative Christmas Content with Alice Loveday

Catherine Erdly: Fun! It’s not a word that we always associate with the idea of getting our businesses ready for Christmas and putting together our Christmas marketing. But that’s what we’re going to be talking about today. I am joined on the podcast by Alice Loveday. She is the founder of Loveday Social and an expert on how small businesses can make their Christmas content fun and creative.

Hi, I’m Catherine. I’m your host today. Welcome to the Resilient Retail Game Plan. This is episode number 209. It’s also the sixth episode in our six episode series, all about getting ready for Christmas. So if you want to be ready for the fourth quarter, then go back and check out the other five episodes from the series where we talk about everything from getting ready for your overall strategy for Christmas, how to create products that your customers are going to love.

And today we’re going to be talking all about your Christmas content.

Welcome to the Resilient Retail Game Plan, a podcast for anyone wanting to start, grow or scale a profitable creative product business with me, Catherine Erdely. The Resilient Retail Game Plan is a podcast dedicated to one thing, breaking down the concepts and tools that I’ve gathered from 20 years in the retail industry and showing you how you can use them in your business.

This is the real nuts and bolts of running a successful product business, broken down in an easy, accessible way. This is not a podcast about learning how to make your business look good. It’s the tools and techniques that will make you and your business feel good.

Confidently plan, launch and manage your products and feel in control of your sales numbers and cashflow to help you build a resilient retail business.

welcome to the podcast, Alice. Thank you so much for joining us.

Alice Loveday: Thanks for having me.

Meet Alice Loveday: Stop Motion Expert

Catherine Erdly: Do you want to introduce yourself and your business?

Alice Loveday: Sure. I’m Alice Loveday and I run a small stop motion studio in Bournemouth. We help brands elevate their online marketing through stop motion and creative content. And that’s through either creating content for clients in the studio. And now also I do a lot of teaching small businesses, how to be more creative with their content and how to get stuck in and do it themselves and start actually enjoying the process as well.

Catherine Erdly: Perfect. And it’s absolutely perfect for our theme today, which is all about your Christmas content.

Alice Loveday: I love

Catherine Erdly: you have, and you’ve been into the, our membership, the resilient retail club and done a very well received session all about stop motion. So I know how fun and engaging your concepts are in the way that you talk about marketing.

So I’m really excited to jump in and talk about this today.

Breaking Down Christmas Content Strategy

Catherine Erdly: So Christmas can feel like a really big, overwhelming season for lots of people when they’re thinking about, Oh my goodness, I’ve got to create all this content for Christmas. So how do you suggest that people start breaking down the task of Christmas content, that big, overwhelming bucket and basically get stuck in?

Yeah.

Alice Loveday: Yeah, I think, the first thing I think is start to think about, rather than just like Christmas as a whole, you want to start thinking about what you want your content to do, because it’s all about posting with purpose, right? We don’t want to be just like throwing content out there and hoping that someone picks up some kind of message from it and you get a sale, like that’s just not going to work.

It’s not going to work as a strategy and it’s not really going to do much for your business and all it’s going to do is burn you out. what I recommend is thinking about maybe three to five purposes for your content. So some might be to talk about your gift wrapping in particular, or the way you package your products.

Another might be to talk about what your products are made of, like your point of difference. Like why should someone buy from you? With most businesses, there are other businesses that sell similar things, right? You want to tell your audience, why you? Are your ingredients organic, or do you hand make your, necklaces in the studio, from, I don’t know, whatever material, but you want to be able to talk about your point of difference.

That’s a really important one, especially at Christmas, when it’s really noisy out there and you want to be able to stand out. So that could be another purpose for some pieces of content. Another purpose could be who are you targeting? Who is your, who is going to buy from you or who are your gifts for?

Then you want to really hone in on that as a purpose. So I just recommend breaking it down into those categories and then you can start, then I feel like once you know what you’re doing, what your content is trying to say, you actually, the ideas start to flood in a bit more. Whereas when you just like, ah, Christmas, it’s just Oh, I’ll just do something Christmasy.

I’ll just put some tents and some baubles in with new. products. And yes, that will only get you so far. I just think you need you a bit more, have a bit more of a rounded strategy really with your content. Who are you targeting? Why you, why are you different? What’s someone going to feel when they receive your product or when they give your products?

That’s really important at Christmas. All of those kinds of things.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah, that’s such a that’s such a great one and it’s also a bit like why this is like you say like why this is the why this is a no brainer as a Christmas gift because I often feel like people there’s a real opportunity for businesses at Christmas because I think You know what it’s like when you’re doing your own Christmas shopping and you’ve got a list of I remember one year I totted up, I think this was like peak year where there were loads of kids and loads of teachers I was buying for and I had to buy 45 presents or something like that.

You know, So you’re like, Okay. So you’re looking you’re also very busy yourself as a person at Christmas and you’ve got all of these things that you need to buy and you are looking for someone to almost say to you, this would be perfect, but this person because, and you can just go done.

Alice Loveday: You need to literally spell it out to people don’t assume that because you’re showing your product on Doing a piece of contact showing your product that someone’s gonna think oh That would be really good to give to my brother in law like you need to say This is perfect for brother in laws. Brother in laws is a bit of an obscure one, but like you need to show that it’s a gift like don’t I mean make sure you have a lot of pieces of content that Show your product as a gift show it wrapped show it being wrapped show it with a tag on it The tag can say who it’s for.

Don’t presume that people are going to put that together. People need to be like, everyone’s lazy on social media, myself included. You need to be told like, this is not just a great product, but this is a great product to be given to your sister. Here you go. And then you’d be like, Oh, brilliant.

Done.

The other great thing on your point If you have products that serve multiple people, then that is a great selling point because you’re right, you can do like sometimes don’t you just find one shop and you’re like, Oh my God, this has sorted me out for this person, this person, this person, this person, and this person, I can get all of them, all of that, those gifts from one spot. So if you can do that as a business, then you know, why not create some content around that? Because that is a real benefit.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. Yeah. Especially when it’s like those gifts that work for lots of people and it’s like my cousin and my son’s piano teacher. And it’s like a nice thoughtful thing that people will be happy to get, but it’s not so specific, you know, it’s like that sort of thing.

Alice Loveday: Exactly. Yeah.

Catherine Erdly: So it’s interesting you brought up around the gifting piece.

Do you think that Christmas content is itself its own thing or do you think it always follows these same principles?

Alice Loveday: I think you’ve always got to be like, when I was saying about knowing the purpose, like you’ve really always got to be following that all year round. But at Christmas, obviously you need to up the gifting element. You need to be talking more about you’re not nurturing your audience so much at Christmas.

So what I recommend is what you can do now to have a successful Christmas is you can start really nurturing your audience because people buy from people and businesses they know and they buy from businesses that they trust. It is the job of now of the summer to be building that trust.

So you want to be creating content right now that really nurtures your audience. And I’m not saying Christmasy. It’s like anything like my five tips for coping in the summer holidays. Like What are the values that your audience and you share? Are you a sustainable Therefore, maybe you want to be talking to your audience about like how to be sustainable while on holiday.

It doesn’t have to feature your products at this point, but what you want to do is connect with them and nurture them so that when Christmas comes around towards the end of the year, they know you, they trust you. And when you put out all of that more gifting, Sales focused content. They’re going to buy from you because you’re not, you’re selling to a warm audience at that point.

You’re not trying to warm them up and sell to them at the same time. So don’t leave it till Christmas to start your Christmas marketing strategy, start now.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah, that’s such a great point. So basically what we’re saying is that if we’re thinking about posting with purpose, then we’re thinking about at Christmas, like that purpose is to sell, right? Because The customers there, they’ve got their money, they are ready to spend. And what you want them to do is, spend with that business that they’ve seen all year that they’ve thought, Oh, that’s such a nice business.

Maybe I don’t need what they’re selling right now, this very minute, but then you’ve warmed them up. So the purpose then for this content is that trust, right?

Alice Loveday: And maybe that might hopefully take a bit of pressure off everyone for those summer sales. Cause I know sales can be low in summer because people are out. Obviously it depends on your business, but generally across the board sales can be a bit lower in summer, but I don’t want people to worry about that because actually it doesn’t mean you shouldn’t post.

What it means is you’ve got to use this time to, for that nurture content. And then, yeah. So in answer to your question about, should it be the same all time? All throughout the year, no, I think you should always be working within your kind of general marketing strategy. You should always really, at some point be talking about your point of difference.

You should always be nurturing your audience and you should occasionally put out that salesy content, but at different times of year, you’re going to be pushing one part of that more. So some of you will be pushing nurture and then yeah, at Christmas you are going all in on sales and your point of difference.

That’s really the two main ones. I think, at Christimas.

Catherine Erdly: Yes. Yeah. Yeah.

Alice Loveday: Not even just self gifting and point of difference. And it’s and it also just educational stuff like lead times. How long does it take? What, like personalization, information about ordering with you, like people need to know all this stuff.

So that’s, we’re like educating them as well about how to buy from you.

Catherine Erdly: yeah. And I always think as well, if you can share the story, it’s almost like the story you can give, you can gift the story along with the gift. So let’s say you have somebody who has really amazing textiles that come from a small women’s cooperative in India, and you can tell that story throughout your content.

And then it’s like when somebody’s gifting the item, I mean, I always love that when I’m giving somebody a gift and it’s not just toiletry set from boots, right? Which

Alice Loveday: Exactly. It’s got a story behind it.

Catherine Erdly: a story.

Alice Loveday: Yeah. And that is the point of difference, isn’t it? That’s why it’s more of a special, but that’s why you would choose that for maybe a slightly higher price point over the toiletry set at Boots because it has a story it’s. Being made with love. It’s been made like with, it’s got a really good soul to it and that’s what you’re buying and that’s what you’re gifting as well.

So yeah, that is a really good point of difference and a good story to tell. I think people struggle with salesy quote content and being like, buy my product. And I just think there’s many ways you can do that salesy content in a bit more of a fun, playful way, which I know we’re going to get onto.

Catherine Erdly: yeah. You’ve led me right into my next question, which is,

Alice Loveday: Look at that.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah, because it can feel really overwhelming and you’ve got, even when you break it down, like you, so you can break it down into these different purposes, which is great. I think a really great starting point and start brainstorming.

What would illustrate all of these points and what would fill all the meet all of these criteria or kind of fulfill these purposes, but in terms of making it fun.

Creating Engaging and Fun Content

Catherine Erdly: So you talked a little bit about that at the beginning, touched on it, how to make it fun, how to bring that joy back into the content creation, both for them and for the people watching, what are your top tip?

Alice Loveday: My top tips are, yeah, try and find like experiment really is the first tip. When you start and you start playing around, you don’t have to have this real Goal like in mind, just start playing around with techniques because you might just find something that you really take to, that you find easy to create, that you really enjoy creating.

And then that might be like your thing that you do. I love, obviously stop motion is brilliant. I’m obviously a big fan of stop motion, but other than just stop motion. Also, I just love all the video transitions and you can make transitions So easily by just put your hand over the camera and back again.

And then in the next one, you do the same and you just cut them together. So like now I love that there’s loads of apps out there. There’s loads of tools and loads of inspiration out there for people to actually be able to create all this much more like fun, engaging content themselves, whereas like even a year or two ago, you would never see a business being able to do a transition because they’d only wouldn’t have even known what a transition was. But now everyone’s all about the transitions. So yeah, I would just start having a look at some fun transitions because that just can, especially like with, even storytelling. Like what you were saying about where the product come, the, sorry, the material comes from one place and then it’s made into this.

And then it’s, then it’s sold package and blah. When there’s like step by steps, you don’t want to be creating a long video that shows all those steps. Cause you will lose people along the way. You want to have like short clips

Catherine Erdly: Yeah.

Alice Loveday: that seamlessly transition together. So if you can start playing around with transitions to take you from one of those scenes to the next, then you can start to tell like a really fun, engaging story about the journey of your product.

And you can get it within 15 seconds.

it’s a really great way to, I think transitions are a great one to play with. And then also, yeah, that’s for more of the storytelling. And nurture content. And then I think, yeah, the sales content, the stop motions are really great. Like boxings, unboxings, gifting, like watching a present being wrapped in stop motion, like that just brings all the feels, especially at Christmas.

Like Christmas is a very like nostalgic, cozy, like warm, joyful time of year. So stop motion really plays on that emotion and really gets people into that kind of stop motion. Sparkly festive spirit in a way that no other medium really does. So it’s, and it’s great for sales. It’s like a really, if you’re, you can use it on organic, but also if you’re running meta ads, it’s great on meta ads, like it’s really highly converting just because you can quickly show a lot of products and you can.

You say a lot of things in a very short space of time and you can entertain your audience while doing it as well yeah.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. Yeah, for sure. Yeah, I love that where you almost see the things jumping into a box and then being wrapped up

Alice Loveday: Yeah. You can do it either way. You can do all the things going into the box. And then you’re watching the things you’ve bought being packed and that’s exciting. So you’re like, Ooh, yeah, I want that. I want to see the stuff I’ve chosen to be put into a box or jump into a box or You can do it.

So you watch the present being unwrapped and all the gifts coming out and what you’re doing then is you’re showing your potential buyer how the receiver of your gift, the recipient of your gift, will feel when they unwrap your present because you’re evoking that emotion of unwrapping a present, everything coming out in a really magical way and you’re showing this is like a really wonderful gift and they want to be able to give that to someone.

So it really helps. In that regard as well.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah, for sure. And also on a very practical level, it’s showing your customer what it’s going to look like. Because I think often if you’re buying from a small business or you’re buying from anybody really, and you’re going to be sending a gift that maybe you, obviously you may buy the gift and wrap it yourself, but then if you’re sending the gift, you want to know.

What the person who is receiving it is, what that’s going to look like for them. Cause you want to almost like sense check, right.

Alice Loveday: so like when you send like some flowers to someone, don’t you always want them to like, send you a picture of the flowers, know how they’ve looked. It’s just like that, but you’re doing it in advance. So you’re showing like, this is how it’s going to look. Look how awesome it looks. And they’re like, yeah, that’s it.

That’s a great gift. That looks really beautiful. They’re going to, it’s if if you can put that extra effort Christmas into your packaging, have the tissue paper, have the sticker, have the, then people will people love that because they can just send it and it’s done. They don’t need to think about oh, it’s going to arrive, but it’s going to not look really like a gift.

Catherine Erdly: Yes.

Alice Loveday: Yeah.

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. Yeah. That’s such a good point about the flowers. So yeah, we always do that. I always do that. Send me a picture. And you think, I’ve looked at a picture of these online. I know what they’re supposed to look like, but you always want that sort of like reassurance, don’t you?

Alice Loveday: Yeah. Yeah. They look like that.

Tools and Apps for Creative Content

Catherine Erdly: So do you have a particular app that you like if people are listening to this thinking? Oh, that sounds fun. Is there any one in particular that you think is works best for small businesses or?

Alice Loveday: There were a few that I use. So you can actually do just a lot within just the Instagram app, like transitions or just with your video, like you can just play around in video and in Instagram. So if you just want to start there go for it. You’ve then got editing apps like Cup Cupcat?

Oh, God. CapCut and InShot. I use InShot personally. I, but I know that CapCut is great as well. I think they’re really similar. And then for stop motion. So with CapCut and InShot, you can do things like masking. So it’s like when you see people walk along and reveal like text behind them, or when you see people where there’s multiple versions of them.

In one scene that’s done by asking and so that’s the kind of thing you can do within one of those editing apps like in shot. And then if you want to create stop motions, there’s life lapse app, which is really great and also has a feature where you can create stop motions and have a live action video in the same shot, which is brilliant.

Cause that’s an extra sort of element of magic. So that’s really fun. And that would actually be really fun for An order packing piece of stop motion where you’re like, just do a video of you packing orders and then around you, all the presents, the gifts, the orders are piling up and down.

That would be awesome. So that’s a great feature that they’ve recently brought out. And then there’s also stop motion studio, which is just stop motion, but it’s available on Android and lifelapse isn’t available on Android, which is. Yeah, a shame.

Catherine Erdly: Oh, all us Android users.

Alice Loveday: I know. So if you are an Android and you’re wanting to shoot stop motions, then you will use stop motions.

You will need to use stop motion studio, but it’s, I love stop motion studio as well. It’s brilliant app for stop motion. And you can get free versions of all of those, so you can try them out and then you can subscribe to like annual plans or monthly subscriptions, depending on how much you think you’ll use it.

And, but you can always, you can test them all out and have a play around which is great.

Catherine Erdly: Thank you so much for that.

Finding Inspiration and Staying Creative

Catherine Erdly: I think the other thing as well, I wanted to ask was that sometimes I know that people will say to me that they’ll hear tips like this about being creative or about doing things that are more fun and they are, they feel inspired. They’re like, okay, yeah, I’d love to do that, but they almost need to see.

Examples to get inspired for themselves. Do you know what I mean? Like a lot of people find it much, much easier to find something that they like, and then go, all right, maybe I’ll try and do that for myself, but it’s almost knowing where to look. So do you have any tips on where to look or where, how to get that inspiration, that creativity, get those creative juices flowing?

Ah,

Alice Loveday: on our website. So

Catherine Erdly: of course,

Alice Loveday: yeah, head over to lovedaysocial. com and you can, yeah we’ve got loads of tutorials on there. And I’m always adding new ones as well. So I’ve got like transitions bundle which is just coming out. And I’ve got like individual tutorials. And also I talk in some of those.

I will tell, I will talk about other ways as well in a minute. I’ll just quickly plug this.

Catherine Erdly: yeah,

No, fair enough. Cause it’s obviously meeting a need that people have.

Alice Loveday: In those I’ve created content collections, because I know sometimes if you’re setting up a stop motion or like you wanting to do a shoot, it can take a little bit of time to set it up. And then, it can be You know, you can create one stop motion and people feel like, Oh, was that worth it?

It took so long. And obviously it gets, you get much quicker the more you do it. But in these content collections, I talk a lot about, creating about 10 pieces of content within this one set up. So once you’ve set up for a stop motion, you can do your stop motion. And then also while you’re there, it’s important to capture some B roll footage, some videos.

Some still imagery. And we always do a transition, like a fun transition where we like play around with the editing techniques as well in those collections. So those are what I’d recommend if you’re worried about like time and like making the most out of a shot. And also if you want to try a few different things that, we’ve got those there, but also, yes, I think Instagram is just great for that.

I just use Instagram a lot for my own inspiration.

Catherine Erdly: how do you break out of your bubble? Cause that’s the only thing, isn’t it? Sometimes you get onto Instagram and you’re like, am I seeing the same thing? Do you search specific hashtags or just or is it the more you look at it, the good, the fun content, the

Alice Loveday: the more

you look. It’s funny because yeah, if you go on to my like, for you or my explore page, it is just it just knows who I am, the algorithm does do good as well sometimes. Really, my algorithm just knows what I like and yours will too. If you start looking at product, there are some product accounts.

I can’t think of any at the top of my head, like the actual, I don’t know the actual handles, but if you start, if you ever, you see a tutorial for a, or an example of like fun product, real idea, make sure you like it. Or you save it because then you’ll be shown more of that kind of content.

So it’s about just training the algorithm to show you that kind of content. But my saved and save stuff, I have a whole library of saved content where I’m like, Oh, I want to try that. I want to try that. Or. That looks fun. Like I know how they did that, but I’ll make a tutorial on that. At some point, I just got this whole library of stuff.

I’m like, yes, I need to make all these tutorials or like these out and like stuff that I just want to do and play around with as well and just have fun creating that kind of content. So start saving a library so that when you do feel like you’ll create, so that when you do feel creative and you want to do something fun, you’ve done it.

You’ve already done the searching and you can just go to your saved content and go Oh yeah, I’ll try this one. This looks

Catherine Erdly: Yeah. Yeah.

Alice Loveday: But yeah that’s what I’d really recommend and that’s mainly how I get my inspiration as well as like just my experience in video production, I just, I know how everyone’s done everything.

Like it’s not, but I know that’s where people really struggle. They see something like a transition and they’re like, but how? I don’t understand. If you’re not trained with that, which why should you be, unless you’ve done it for your career? Like it’s really hard to know how people have, how this content’s being created or how to do it step by step.

So yeah, finding, start finding tutorials on Instagram and then hopefully you’ll be served more. But yeah, and also like I post loads of tutorials as well. So yeah, follow at lovely. social. Maybe

Catherine Erdly: on your own personal profile. I was just thinking,

Alice Loveday: have a separate profile for your personal enjoyment.

Catherine Erdly: yeah, I think my for you page is mostly animal videos, which is probably not a good thing. Oh,

Alice Loveday: It’s such an interesting if you go to someone’s explore page, it’s such an insight into their mind. It’s so funny.

Catherine Erdly: we’ve talked about this and final question.

Standing Out During the Christmas Rush

Catherine Erdly: So we’ve talked about this a little bit at the beginning, but I think it’s worth just revisiting it because I know that it can feel really overwhelming at Christmas for people when they’re looking to create content. So it’s such a huge period of time for sales, but it’s also so noisy out there and it gets to the point where in November, it just feels every company on the planet is shouting about their offers and their deals and their Christmas products and everything else. So how can small businesses use their unique personality to cut through that noise at Christmas?

Alice Loveday: Yeah. It is, I totally agree. It does get really noisy. And I think again, it is, I just go back to that start now with your nurturing, because then your content will show up and On more people’s feeds, if they’ve engaged with your content previously, you’ll automatically cut through by just being more visible.

That is really important to just get, try and get, increase your visibility and your reach now. And then, yeah, it’s being more creative, putting that more creative content out there, because if there’s ever a time to start trying things out, it is probably at Christmas, because then you’re going to be, again, standing out, looking different from others.

And also, I’d just say, if you can bear it, get in front of the camera. Show up, show up in your story. You don’t have to do it on reels, but show up on your stories

Catherine Erdly: Yeah.

Alice Loveday: and or if you really can’t bear that start doing voiceovers, it just really helps drive that connection and again, people buy from people they trust and and connect with, like connecting with your audience is key to sales.

So. Yeah, voiceovers over like, if you’re doing a real where you’re just showing yourself, if you’re an illustrator, maybe you’re just doing, there’s just a bit of video or B roll of you drawing. Maybe it’s, you don’t want to be in it, so even if it’s just your hands drawing something or putting the finishing touches or packing something or whatever it is that your craft is then adding a bit of voiceover to that will just really help connect, make that connection with your audience over another video that just has the hands doing something.

They’re hearing you, you’re talking, they can hear your passion. I think that, I think the difficulty is getting across. People struggle to get their passions across. Everyone who has a small business has started it because they are really passionate about something and they share that with the world.

And it’s really hard to get that across in your content. And that’s where people really struggle, I think. And I think if you can, Like voiceover is a great way to connect and to try and get that passion across. As well as being there on video and like showing your enthusiasm. But I think that’s it really.

That ultimately is what it comes down to is show your passion. Don’t try and be all polished. There’s a place for the polished content. Absolutely. There’s a place for all types of content, but try, if you can get across your passion, your audience will feel that too. And they’ll just want to buy from you because you’re so passionate about it. Because they love the

Catherine Erdly: They love the energy.

Alice Loveday: They love the energy. Yeah. Don’t be shy about presenting your true self and your energy and your true passion. I think that’s, it doesn’t have, you don’t have to be perfect. You have to be passionate,

that’s all.

Catherine Erdly: Love it. Don’t have to be perfect, but you do have to be passionate.

Catherine Erdly: Alice, thank you so much. I’ve really enjoyed our chat. So do you want to remind everyone where they can find out more and follow you?

Alice Loveday: Yes on Instagram, at loveday. social, where I share tons of tutorials, inspiration, tips and tricks, behind the scenes, et cetera, et cetera. And yeah, on our website, lovedaysocial. com. I’ve got some freebies on there. So if you’re not sure of like how to get started, what kit you need, we’ve got some free freebies up there, free PDFs.

I’ve also got and then there’s loads of tutorials on there that you can just buy on demand, and then we have a membership that we open twice a year as well. So yeah, I just have a little look and if you have any questions, I’m always in my DMs, so always happy to help inspire, give ideas, answer any questions you have.

Catherine Erdly: Thank you so much for listening. Why not head over to Instagram at resilient retail club and share with me what your thoughts were about today’s episode and where you were listening. I always love to see where you’re tuning into the podcast as well as what you took away and what you’re thinking about in terms of your Christmas content and do definitely go check out love day social.

And she has shared so many great tips and ideas and inspiration. You’re bound to feel inspired. After you’ve taken a look, we will be back next week with another episode. If you like or follow or subscribe, whatever it’s called on the platform that you listen to your podcasts on, you’ll be the first to know about every new episode that comes out on a Thursday morning.

See you next week.

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